36 well funded companies with small teams
and behind the scenes from next play
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Other recent posts:
Career guide: questions to ask before joining a startup (featuring best practices from Sri Batchu, David Apple, Nikunj Kothari, Claire Butler, and others).
Note for friends of next play:
This is a new section we’re adding to give friends of next play additional insight into how we’re thinking about the next steps for the network (a bit meta if you think about it).
Right now, we are mainly focused on trying to bring as much value as possible to people in the network—that means creating more useful resources (e.g. written guides), sourcing more unique opportunities (under-the-radar roles), and making more helpful connections (more matching, gatherings, etc.). This ends up being quite a bit of manual work (as soon as we reach inbox zero, it starts filling up again)—but it feels very meaningful and impactful.
We also have some low-hanging ideas…for example, creating video content for TikTok and Instagram. We hope to make meaningful progress in those channels over the next few months.
We also have some more out there ideas:
What if we brought 5-10 companies to a virtual demo day of sorts, and had them pitch their open roles to you all (and perhaps some guest investors and operators who could ask follow up questions)?
What if we partnered with the best resume reviewer or best negotiation coach and tried to help people in the network access those sorts of services in a straightforward manner?
We are really thankful for the feedback we have received thus far, but we really think the next 12 months could be transformative for the network. So stay tuned (and be sure to give us feedback or ideas if you have any—hi@nextplay.so).
Here’s a list of 36 companies who’ve raised $50-100M and still have less than 150 employees:
HeyGen - AI video generation platform (Bay Area/LA/Toronto) | hiring page
Fireworks AI - Enterprise AI inference platform (Bay Area/NYC) | hiring page
Radiant - Portable nuclear power generator (El Segundo) | hiring page
Regard - EHR analytics platform (NYC) | hiring page
Captions - AI video production tools (NYC) | hiring page
ScaleOps - Cloud optimization (Tel Aviv) | hiring page
Standard Bots - Automated manufacturing robot (US remote/NY) | hiring page
Apex - Customizable satellite manufacturer (LA) | hiring page
Volley - Voice gaming platform (Bay Area) | hiring page
Peak Energy - Battery storage systems (Burlingame) | hiring page
Fetcherr - Airline pricing AI platform (Poland/TLV/Atlanta) | hiring page
Decagon - Gen AI customer support (Bay Area) | hiring page
Cortex - Internal developer portal (US remote) | hiring page
Protect AI - AI security monitoring (US remote/Seattle/Bangalore) | hiring page
Contextual AI - Enterprise RAG applications (Bay Area/NYC) | hiring page
Supabase - Open source database (Remote) | hiring page
Chaos Labs - Crypto protocol security (NYC/remote) | hiring page
Basecamp Research - GPT for biology (Boston/London) | hiring page
Second Front Systems - Secure software deployment (US remote) | hiring page
Oshi Health - Virtual GI care service (US remote) | hiring page
Muon Space - Earth monitoring satellite (Virginia/Bay Area/DC/Remote) | hiring page